Day 4: What are the pros and cons of having a mental illness or your specific illness(es)?

Cons – Well, I have a hard time keeping a job, making friends, enjoying life — my depression and anxiety really inhibit me to do a lot of things. It isn’t fun at all. With anxiety, I really hate going out. I am scared of meeting new people. Then when I do make a friend, I get really overwhelmed if they keep asking me to hang out, so I quite answering their calls or texts – and well, they give up on me, which I don’t blame them for. I get overwhelmed with jobs too – so I feel sick and can’t go in, or I have panic attakcs during them, or I just stop going, or I quit. When I get depressed – nothing makes me happy. I can sleep for days. I can not shower for days. I am not interested in anything. My mania with my bipolar even stinks — spend lots of money, get agitated and frustrated. Nothing good from that. Basically — it just sucks. So nothing good about the mental illness there.

Pros – Hmm that is a hard one to even think about. With bipolar, there is mania. Most people like that. They say they are productive and all that jazz. For me, I hate my mania – nothing good comes out of it. So I cant even list that as a pro. I think I am more empathetic though. I see the world differently than most people. I feel pain. I know what it is like to hurt. I guess I don’t want to say I understand things better, and yet I also do want to say that. When someone is hurting or down, I feel like I really do understand them. I do feel like I see the world completely differently than someone without mental illness – I feel like I have a better perspective. I know that sounds bad and mean and wrong and as if I am better than them — but I feel like I just have a better understanding — or a different understanding I guess.

I participated in 6 months of inpatient schema therapy which was really great for me. This helped me with my BPD. Perhaps having to sit down for 6 months and break it all down into my mind is what this really worked for me. It was all broken down into every group I went to, plus we had one group where the therapist added in a bit of DBT, but not much. Schema therapy really was great though.

I also did quite a bit of CBT here and there. It helped me when I really thought about it, but I never would actually practice it outside of a hospital setting. When I was inpatient, and had the sheets in front of me, had to do the assignments, it all made sense. Outside of the hospital — I just could never make myself think of it.

Outside of therapy programs though, using my coping skills is really the best thing for me. When I am able to bring myself out of my “funk” enough to actually do something ….

I have accepted my diagnosis for the most part. I get upset that I have to take medicine everyday. I get annoyed that I am going to have to deal with it for the rest of my life. I know that for my BPD I can get much better through therapy and even my PTSD can improve a lot with therapy. My bipolar is going to follow me all my life though. I have tried going off my meds and every single time I ended up in the hospital – repeatedly – 15 times – until I got committed to a state hospital.

I have accepted that I have to stay on my meds now. I have accepted that I need medications and I need therapy and I will battle these for the rest of my life.

I will be honest though, I am treated unfairly many times because of my borderline personality diagnosis. People think I am manipulative because of it. I personally, am not. I have doctors tell me that I tell them whatever I want to get the medications I want. The medications I have been on work perfectly for me – since I got out of the state hospital, my meds have kept me stable. The only med that hasn’t is my anxiety med – and I asked the state hospital to take me off of it because in the controlled environment in there, I thought I was better. I wish I hadn’t gone off of it. Now, everyone here thinks I am just manipulating them because of my BPD. There is more than just that instance though – I have heard it multiple times. I wish that my BPD diagnosis would just be taken off my chart.

But, it is what it is. I have what I have. I just need to continue to learn how to cope with it all and live with it all and focus my life on living better and coping better.

After my diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) I struggled to accept it. I battled in my mind over if I really had it or not. Quite honestly, I had some therapists that kind of disagreed about it too, which made me wonder even more.

When I really look at the traits though, I am pretty sure I do have enough of them to meet the criteria. I waiver back and forth on if I do meet it or not, but I think that is because I want to convince myself I don’t have it.

Throughout my entire life I have never known who I really was. I went to quite a few different schools. Two elementary schools, Three Middle Schools, and Two High Schools. I hung out with different types of people at all of them. I conformed to whatever behavior and pattern I needed to. I didn’t really have my own identity. If I would have been put in a room with all of them together, I wouldn’t have known how to act. Who would I have conformed to? Which group would I have identified with? Would I have identified with any of them?

To this day, I don’t know who I am. I don’t dye my hair or cut it often. I don’t change my clothing style all the time. No one would think or feel that I cannot really figure out who I am.

I am on disability, and quite honestly, am not exactly stable enough to hold a job at this point. I am working at my own pace to get a degree though, which I am hoping will lead me to a job and stability since I am going to have more structure in my life.

Even with this though, is it what I really want? I went to college and got 2 Bachelors degrees. My mental illness definitely stopped me from being able to use them, but I questioned my main one (nursing) during those last two years when my mental illness was getting bad. I couldn’t figure out who I was or what I wanted.

Now, am I doing the right thing? Will I be able to follow through with this? Will I like it and keep it and enjoy it? Is it me?

I think it is. I am going to stay positive about it of course.

I just know that I have struggled with finding myself. Who I am. Who I want to be and who I can identify with and trust. I feel like I don’t know how to act or socialize. I feel somewhat disconnected from everyone and I don’t know how to connect unless I follow them. If that makes sense?

I don’t know if any of this makes sense, or if anyone else feels this way at all. But that has been my experience with the identity issue that goes along with BPD.

Does anyone else experience this trait of BPD? What are your symptoms like with it?

Well, I am broke and so I went to change my cable/internet plan today. When I moved here, to keep myself distracted I signed up for cable along with Internet because as a bundle it is fairly well priced. Of course you sign a 2 year contract and the 1st year it is super cheap with all these discounts and the second year they jack up the price. So I decided all I really need is internet. So I went to switch it. I come home, hook up my own router….ugh it is not working. Of course since I am using my own equipment they will not troubleshoot it. They want me to pay $100 for their router. Needless to say after 3 hours on the phone I gave up. A few hours later I decided to try their online chat. I got a friendly rep who worked to try to solve it, decided he couldn’t, and id’s sending a tech out Monday!

Soo no Internet til then. I have a few posts scheduled before then, but since I just have my phone and data plan I probably won’t be on here to respond to anything much.

I hope you all have a great weekend though! Mine will be incredibly boring I am sure. I am either going so sleep or perhaps force myself to leave my apartment

Word Press Post A Day – If money were out of the equation, would you still work? If yes, why, and how much? If not, what would you do with your free time?

If money was out of the question, I think I would work. Maybe not a lot, but I would work.

I’m on disability right now. In fact I haven’t worked since 2012. Right now, I don’t even think I could work yet.

I wishI could work though. I wish I was able to be out there, be around people, do something with my day, be productive, feel like I was contributing to society, making a difference.

At this point, even getting out to volunteer hasn’t been possible. So I can’t feel any of those things.

My bipolar has finally stabilized quite a bit thanks to my medication, so the highs and lows are not as bad. My borderline personality is getting better. My PTSD and social anxiety is out of control though at this point. Most people would brush this off as no big deal. Surely you can still work! Those that have been there understand though, or I hope they understand.

Even if money wasn’t an issue – I got no money, not a lot of money, or a ton of money — I would love to work. I don’t think I would work a lot. I would work enough though. Enough to give me a routine. A routine if what I need. A routine is important to my life. It grounds me. It actually helps me, but until I can keep commitments and not get overwhelmed and handle social situations and relationships with others and not be so depressed that I miss a ton of work or attempt suicide and end up in the hospital from the overwhelming situations or depression — until then, even if a routine from work would help me — it just wouldn’t be possible.

I am signed up with my states vocational rehab. They would be able to work with me, set me up with a job coach and put me in a program to work with me . They are so backed up with other people though that I am on a wait list. They are only now getting people off the list from a year ago…..